Pages

Monday, 13 September 2010

Dress sense in later life

OK, it's like this. I'm starting this blog because one of the newspapers has annoyed me a bit. Last week the Times didn't publish its men's style page on Wednesday. The men's style bit was also cut from the Saturday magazine.

And we're starved of this stuff, us blokes of a certain age. You remember a couple of years ago there were those undies adverts featuring real women? You know, some had slightly fatter thighs than most models, some dared to have breasts - they were real people.

Now check the latest Esquire. Or GQ. Or any of the men's mags. I'm interested in how I look, I'm interested in whether a suit's going to make me look slimmer or even fatter, I want to know who's selling the best shirts at the best prices. I'm not a twentysomething waifish model - and I don't want to see examples of fashion that are going to make me look like a walking mid-life crisis. The models we see in the papers are never going to represent the same problem as they do in the women's market of course; men are under nowhere near the same pressure to conform or lose too much weight - but the facility for finding out how you're likely to look and what's out there in the market for you rather than for a much younger man is still pretty limited.

That, essentially, is what this blog's going to be about. I (and others if it grows) will look into elements of men's styling - nothing flash, nothing that kids us that we're going to look young again (at 45 I can quite see how ridiculous I'd look in some of the 'ironic' clothes doing the rounds); I'll also be looking into aftershaves/colognes/eau de toilette (and maybe explaining the difference), gadgets where appropriate and anything else that seems right.

This is going to be a blog about being middle aged in 2010 and beyond. I'm not claiming any massive expertise, I'm just taking an interest and sharing my learnings (and welcoming any disagreements!) as I go.